Quotes About Anxiety

Every time my parents bring up the subject of if I want to go back to Lake Hills or transfer somewhere else it makes me want to take more pills. Like that's even a possibility. Anything that might resemble a pill is under lock and key in our house. The next time I get my period, I'm going to have to ask Mom's permission for a Midol. She's probably going to ration my use of tampons in case I try to make a noose out of the strings.

It's so, so stupid what we do to ourselves because we're afraid. It's so stupid.

That's not a real answer.' Says who?' Says me. I mean real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence.' Clowns.

I mean, to me, freaking out is different. More of a running away, not telling anyone what's wrong, slowly simmering until you burst kind of thing.

Okay, I said, what's your biggest fear? As always, he took a second to think about the answer. Clowns, he said. Clowns. Yup. I just looked at him. What? he said, glancing over at me. That is not a real answer, I told him. Says who? Says me. I meant a real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence. He thought for a second. Clowns.

Despite my dad's assurances I was strangely nervous my stomach tight ever since we'd hung up. Maybe Deb had picked up on this and it was why she'd pretty much talked nonstop since I'd approached her and asked for a ride. I'd barely had time to explain the situation before she had launched into a dozen stories to illustrate the point that Things Happened But People Were Okay in the End.

It's the same thing,' I told her. 'What is?' 'Being afraid and being alive.' 'No,' she said slowly, and now it was as if she was speaking a language she knew at first I wouldn't understand, the very words, not to mention the concept, being foreign to me. 'Macy, no. It's not.

But I'm kind of used to being invisible," I continued. "So any kind of attention makes me nervous.

That's my problem, actually. I don't talk to anybody about what's going on in my head, because I'm afraid they might not be able to take it

It's so stupid," she added softly, "what we do to ourselves because we're afraid. It's so stupid." And she kept her head turned, as if I wasn't even there.

When there is fear about the future, it is comforting to take it out on outsiders who can be blamed for the past.

Punish you for what? said Jack. Everything! Nothing. I don't know. That's the problem, said Holly. That's what happens when you grow up the way I did. You spend the rest of your life just waiting for God to smite the shit out of you.

Perhaps all anxiety might derive from a fixation on moments—an inability to accept life as ongoing.

Today was very full, but the problem isn't today. It's tomorrow. I'd be able to recover from today if it weren't for tomorrow. There should be extra days, buffer days, between real days.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Just to make sure it wasn't cancer. Or a heart attack. Or lymphangioleiomyomatosis. Which, sure, only affected one out of a million people, but it started with a cough, and if you were the one out of a million, then you were done-like-dinner within the year.

My thesis is that at many levels of human interaction there is the opportunity to conflate discomfort with threat, to mistake internal anxiety for exterior danger, and in turn to escalate rather than resolve.

I don't have a driver's license (phobia).

A human being who wakened in the morning with a queesy stomach, with fifteen hours to kill before next bedtime, had not much use for freedom.

More of fear than of any other thing has been created.

Yes, there are good reasons for revulsion and fear. But revulsion and fear impair judgment. Anxiety destroys scale, and suffering makes us lose perspective.

She just has fixed herself on me to kill me. She can do it at long distance. One of these days I'll be struck down by suffocation or apoplexy because of her.

Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, tells us that people become unhappy if they have too many options in life. The problem with options is that choosing any path can leave you plagued with self-doubt.

Never have them, Reg. I swear, you're never free. You LOVE them too much. It's like a vital organ walked out of your body and is out there waving hi to people and you fear for it all day, EVERY day, because if something happened to it...